Illustrating Texturey Birds in Procreate

1. Introduction: I'm didnt jokingly Ryland an illustrator out of San Diego, California In today's course, you're gonna follow along with me as we illustrate texturally birds and the at procreate. In my previous course, illustrating butterflies and procreate, we use a smoother, more blended technique when we're illustrating and coloring our butterflies. So this course is gonna teach us some new techniques for a more textured look. So grab your iPad, your apple pencil fired up, procreate and let's get started. 2. Setting Up: Now that you have your iPad fired up, we're gonna go ahead and open up the app procreate. When we're in there, we're gonna set ourselves up so that we have three separate documents for our three birds. So I'm gonna click on the plus sign in the upper right hand corner, and I'm gonna click on eight by eight. You can do 12 by 12. You can really do any size you want, but eight by eight. Seems like a a nice size, Plenty of layers for what we're doing. And one more time we're gonna make three canvases and then we can go ahead and name those right now. So the 1st 1 I'm going to name Bluebird already did research on a couple of birds. And they all have special characteristics so that we can really cover a multitude of techniques in order to do you pretty much any bird you want to in the future and northern liquor. So that three birds are the Bluebird, the gold, Ian Finch and the Northern Flicker. After that, you can select all of those and put him in a stack. If you want to get very organized and we can name that stack birds. Okay, so once we open that up, we're gonna open up our bluebird canvas, and we are ready to get started. 3. Sketching the Bluebird: Now that you have your bluebird canvas opened up, we're gonna go ahead and swipe up from the bottom and grab safari and create a split screen . Now, my search engine gonna use today's Google images. Sometimes I use Pinterest. It just depends. Um, but you can pull up whatever search engine you prefer, and we're gonna put in Bluebird. And the reason I chose the Bluebird is because it's a simple songbird. So it has a very simple shape. We're going to start out nice and easy with just three colors, so you can do a different bird than the Bluebird. But if you dio, I would pick something simple and that has maybe two or three colors. So this is a good reference photos. I'm gonna pick that one. The next thing that we would normally do is create a palette. And if you've watched my illustrating butterflies video, I go and pick out all the colors for the butterflies and we use a screenshot in order to do that on. It's a really efficient way to do so. But, uh, on these, since there's only a couple colors and I trust my I enough and I don't need it to be exact . I'm gonna go ahead and just pick colors that I like or that I think are close enough. Um, as I illustrate the bird so t so I'm gonna pick the palate. Is we Go? I'm gonna keep my default on my what I call my base palette, which is just a really big range of a lot of different colors. Um OK, so to start with, we're gonna go with black so that we can create our sketch layer. So I'm going to go in to my sketching and grabbed my six b pencil, okay? And I'm gonna use my reference in order Teoh to sketch this bird. So, um, the first thing I'm gonna look for is just shapes when I scheduled. Definitely. Uh, adhere Teoh More of the shape, Um, philosophy I gas or technique. Be a better word for it. Um, and you can draw through a swell right. Like this wing. I wouldn't normally draw through or you don't see that line of his back behind their rate. But I'm gonna draw through so that I know that it connects chits Teoh his or her, uh, tail properly. And then I'm gonna round out his face and not draw the beak until later so that I can make sure that his head attaches to his chest properly. And then I can add the beacon. This has to be perfect. This is not a, um, super realistic rendition. We get to play a little bit and we get to interpret a little bit. Um and that's really fun. And on my illustrations, I like to make their eyes a little bit bigger sometimes Heads a little bit bigger bellies a little bit bigger. Um, it just tends to add a lot of character. So it's up to you can really play around. You can make it more realistic. You can make it a little bit more stylized. Whatever, um, suits your tastes in your style. And then I go ahead and erase erase lines that I don't want in the final piece. Or I don't want confusing me as I go to color render. It's to come down a little bit more. So now I'm just refining the shapes as a sketch. Okay. And then we'll keep the feet really simple here. His bird feet. When you look at them, they can get really complex and really pretty strange, actually. And if you try to get to detailed, sometimes they just look really funny. So keep it simple, and that is our initial sketch. 4. Coloring and Texturing the Bluebird: Now that I have my sketch, I'm ready to put in color So the first thing I'm gonna dio is at a new layer And I can name that layer color if I want Stay super organized and then I'm gonna put in blue. So I'm gonna go ahead and get in the blue range and find a blue that I like. Uh, that seems to be a good fit for the blue on the blooper. And I'm gonna grab a new pen and I'm gonna go into thinking and ink lead Now, in plead leaves this really cool textured edge. You can see that it's really nice for feathered animals or furry animals. Um, it's a pen that I tend to use a lot. So, um, since there's only blue here on the top of the burden and on the wing, I'm gonna kind of trees that out and put that blue Onley where it appears on the bird. This doesn't have to be perfect, but I try to put it where it goes. So I can either color this in now or I can drop in, uh, color, Okay. And then any edges that we need to smooth out or make a little more seamless. We can do that. Okay, so now we have our blue. Um, I'm gonna add another layer here, and then I'm gonna add orange. So you should have called this blue and then orange and then white. I'm not gonna do that because eventually I'm gonna merge them, and it just seems like I'm just taking too much time on that. So let's go toe orange and let's find a color that we think fits nicely. We're still using and bleed for a pen, and we're gonna put the orange in where we see it on the birth. And now we're going to grab white, so Ah, this isn't quite white. I think it has a bluish tint to it. So I'm gonna go into my blue area and then pick a white that maybe has just a tinge of blue , and I'm going to make a new layer, and this could be my white player. And I'm gonna put that color in as well and then drop in color. This doesn't have to be perfect, But if you want to clean up your edges or make sure they meet properly, that's fine. um, the next thing I'm gonna do is add texture to each of these layers. So there's a couple different brushes that I really like for texture. Um, we'll start with our blue layer again. Sorry. Well, grammar blue layer and we'll grab our blue color the color picker. And then let's grab, um, let's grab a darker blue so we'll just go more towards black. And, uh, let's crab the grunge brush. Uh, and that's under texture. So textures grunge and then I'm just gonna kinda oops, sorry, let me backtrack. Let's go back to our layers and let's turn out full lock on for each of our layers. That's important, because if I draw outside of, um so if I were to leave awful lock off on the when I'm trying to drawn and I'm trying to put texture in that wing, I'm drying outside of the wing. If I put awful lock on now, when I put texture in that wing, it'll stay inside the wing and it won't, um, drought here. So Alfa locks kind of amazing. So, um, so anyway, I'm gonna put in kind of stamp in texture. With this grand brush, it looks pretty cool on. And I'm gonna do that where I see kind of a darker blue and I don't have to be super careful on this or super perfect on this. We're gonna add a lot more texture as we go. So So don't worry if it doesn't look, um, perfect or even good. Uh, okay. So let's grab our orange now and we'll get that base orange and make it a little bit darker . And we're in the orange layer. So we're gonna dio the same thing here. Just anywhere you see a darker orange. We're just gonna kind of lay in a little bit of texture there, and then we'll do the same thing with the white eso grab that base white, and then we'll go into kind of a gray and lay that in in places where we see a little bit of gray. So we started adding and texture, and then I'm gonna go in with a charcoal brush now. So I'm gonna go down to char calls, and, um, I'm gonna go into my six p compressed, and I'm just going to kind of add in. Um, we'll start with the white layer since we're ready on it. And I'm just gonna add in a little bit of, um, texture where there's were their shadows. Uh, and you can kind of see them right? Anywhere. There's, like, a little bit of a darker, uh, color on the white. We're gonna add that in, and then we'll do the same thing with our orange will grab that deeper orange color and will go under orange layer and we will add in some shadows just a little bit of texture here and there as well. Right. Um and you can just kind of lately put that in or put it in wherever we're. We've got a lot of text string to do. Still, so once again, don't worry about how it looks right now we're gonna go in and grab that darker blue again , and then we'll go on the blue layer and kind of do the same thing. So any places that you see a darker trump's, it's a little too thick. Um, any places that you see it that darker blue, we're gonna add in some texture there too. Okay. And then I'm even gonna add it. Even darker blue kind on the bottom of the wing to really give a nice shadow there where it meets the body. Okay, um, so that's our first texture. Now, we we do the texture ring separate so that we can really get, uh, the texture in each layer. And then we're gonna merge the layers and texture. Um, together. So now we're gonna grab all three layers, pinch them together, and then there emerged. And now it's called Color. That's perfect. Um, and and now that they're all together, the first thing we're gonna do is create a feathered look between the colors. So we're gonna grab our smudge er, and we're gonna go into, um, It's catching and grab our six b pencil. And anywhere the feathers look like they're overlapping. We are going. Teoh swiped them together to make a feather. Look, before I do that, I'm going to go in and take off Al Flop because there's places like here where I'm gonna want Teoh, um, kind of smooth out where these feathers meat. So I'm just gonna go through and kind of take note as to how the feathers, um, lie directionally and try to follow that path a little bit. And there becomes a point with these feathers where the orange is kind of the one that takes over and ends up being, um, the overlap. Er so whichever one you want to overlap, the other color is the one that you're going, Teoh, Um, drag from one color into the other color. Okay. And then once I get to the wing here, I'm gonna do a little less of that because this wing is actually a little bit more smooth. And the texture that I'm getting from the glee pen is probably a little bit more online. Then, um then this feather look see if you can kind of have a meat organically and then down here will do the same thing. And for this, you're gonna get in real close and do all the feathering. And then once you're done, your zoom outs, you can see what it looks like from afar. And then, um, and then adjust from there if you want Big swipe, big swiping feathers coming through or if you want a little tiny feathers and a little less noticeable, that's really a a stylistic choice. Okay. And maybe even the white into the blue, a little bit down here in his tail feathers. Okay, there we go. So now we've got the feathered look, we've got all our layers merged, and now it's time to add, um, some detail. So all of these steps are kind of, um just stylistic choices, Really? So some of these can be skipped, and you still get a really, really cool result. Uh, but I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and add another layer, and we can name this details, Okay. And then I'm just gonna add in little feather marks. Um, I'm gonna go with a lighter color for the orange, and I'm gonna grab my sketching six b pencil. Use that a lot. Uh, and then in the yeah, in the orange, I'm going to just add these little orange markings. Now, this lighter color, we're gonna, um, use a lot within the lighter areas, right? And then, um and you can use a little in the darker areas to, but maybe a little bit more. I'm sparsely and then you'll grab a darker orange, and then you can put that and me darker areas, and that's just gonna help with the, um, enhance the shading that you've created, okay. And then just kind of Liam all through. And then that's just gonna give it, um, a little bit more of a textured feather. Look, the reason I do this on a separate Larry you don't have Teoh is because if I don't like where one of those displaced, I can erase it and then out a new one or do something different. Um, and, uh, nothing really gets lost or hurt there. Okay? And then, um, or I can you know, I can erase this without affecting the layer underneath because it's a separately, if that makes sense. Um, okay, so now I'm gonna go into my blue, and I'm gonna grab a little bit lighter of a blue, and I'm gonna do the same thing. So I'm just gonna kind of follow the curve of the wings and, um, add in some little feathered well feathered Look here, you don't have to do it all over the entire bird, but just giving it some movement. It's bothersome movement. And then same thing down here on the white. I'm gonna grab kind of grayish take color and have that follow the movement of the bird as well. Okay. And now I've got those details I'm also gonna add Slept darker blue to the wing so that I can, um, add a little bit too. The places where there is that that darker blue and that shadow as well. All right, so now those are the details. You can merge those layers when she feel good about them. Because when I lay texture, uh, in this next step, I want that texture to go over those details as well and kind of blend them in a little bit . So I'm gonna add a little bit more texture. Um, with two of my favorite texturizing, er's one isn't sketching. It's called artist Cran. Uh, I'm gonna grab that white color because you can see there's a lot of white throughout the bird and we don't really have that in there yet. Um, you know it before you do that, I'm just noticing that this is a little bit, uh, the wing is a little bit off here where I don't really like it. So you know what I'm gonna do there? I'm gonna smudge. Um, yeah, with my 60 pencil. And I'm just gonna bring that orange through a little bit more. Um, I think this will help. Yeah, and then that just shapes that wing a little bit more. And then I think I'm gonna add a little bit of charco. Um, that 60 compress chuckle just for a little bit more definition. On where? That where that wing iss Let's see how that looks. Yeah, I like that better. Oops. Okay, there we go. Cool. So at any time, right, you can go back in and adjust things as you go. So now we're ready to texture even more. Let's go back to that, uh, sketching category and grab artists Cran and we'll grab that white again, and we're just gonna kind of lay that, um in places where we see it here. I'm impressing. There we go and pressing really lightly, so I can just kind of add it in as I go. My capacity on this is a little bit lower than full strength. If I go full strengthened hard, it's really hard. Um and so I'm gonna lower it a little bit, and then I'm to start late and I can build up a zai go if I want more and more of it. And there's a lot of it, actually, And it just this is such a nice texturizing, because it just puts it in, um, kind of sparingly. It's not too thick. It's really pretty. Um, make sure we're on awful lock here again. What? Sorry. So any time you're texturizing and you don't want that to go outside of the lines, make sure Alfa Lock is on. Sometimes I forget that that and, um, drawing things on a new layer you have to check. Um, we're just gonna keep playing that in where we see it, where we want it. Okay, It's gonna give this more more depth as well. Okay, so now let's go, Teoh. Um, my other favorite, I think it's inch arkels. Yep. Brit tree. Um, and this is a similar type brush. It's gonna be a little bit more harsh rate so anywhere that you want it just a little bit darker and more noticeable. That's where you're gonna put um, a bun tree. Uh, texture. Okay, um, and you can also texturizing with, um, other colors. So let's grab like that light orange. And let's gonna put that in, um, in the white too. And let's put the blue in orange a little bit. Just really adds, um, add something when you do that, we'll go back to our, um, sketching and get artists cran again and just putting color where you think it's gonna look good. Um, so we'll stop there on texture for now. And we're gonna, um, Adan's and details. So let's add in the eyes and the beak, so we'll make a new layer for that. Um, I'll just call this eyes, but what Put beak on it, too. And I'm going to grab a black or are very close to black, and I'm gonna graham a inking, um, studio pen. And if I want to see exactly how a sketch this I I can lower the a pastie of my color layer so that my sketch layer shows through here. If I want to. Just guess that's fine, too. And so I'm gonna make sure my I'm on my eyes layer and I'm gonna draw my eye. Now hold it there. It's gonna give me a, um, a pretty perfect circle, which is nice, because I can't draw a perfect circle. Um, but I like when procreate kind of does it for me, it's not a perfect circle. Let's try that again. Okay, that's better. We'll fill that in, and then we'll grab white or close toe white and square, and we'll just have that little white spot for, um, reflected light, okay? And then we can increase the capacity on our birds, so we kind of see what that's gonna look like. Um, And then let's grab our, um, we're still in studio pen. We're gonna do our beak, and we can use um let's go like a like a grayish black ish color down here like a dark gray , and we can draw that in. Okay. And, um, I'm gonna turn on out flock so that I can kind of shade this speak and at some highlights. So I'm gonna go up thio more white color, and I'm gonna grab, um, What's Rob textures to start? So we use grunge and lower that a little bit and kind of, um, leave that in a little bit. And the dark the hurdle we press, the more highlight we're gonna get. So it's really easy and nice to be able to blend. Um, blend out from the highlight. If that makes sense. Okay? I think I want OK. No, that's fine. All right. So that's our r i and our beak. And I'm gonna merge my eyes and my color layer, and I'm gonna grab that smudge, er, that's on six b pencil. And I'm just gonna, um, lay that, um, feathers color over the beak. So it looks like it's just a little bit more of a natural. Um, seem here lying here as the big meets the the, um fetters. Okay, so now it really looks like it's coming out of the birds the birds face. So I'm gonna grab that same color that I have in the beak. And I am going Teoh make a new layer. Um, I can call this feat if I want John a little later. So it's not I don't have to be super organized here cause I'm not going to get lost, um, sketching and we'll go back to that 60 pencil and we're gonna keep these, um, these feet really simple. And we're just gonna follow what we've already drawn. And I'm gonna make a little bit thicker at the top here as it meets um her for I think I would rather actually have this girl here and just gonna just this a little bit. And this here, Okay? And then I'm gonna go into my eraser. I'll grab Studio pen something, Smith, and just kind of make these look more like claws. Um, and shape them just a little bit so that they have points to them. Okay, Don't even have to do that or go into that much detail with it. But that's cool. And then, um will draw her back foot. I kind of have it. Meet her for back here and then. Same idea, Onda. We can erase and make kind of shape her claws again. Groups. Okay, so there's her little feet keeping them really nice and simple. Let's turn off our sketch layer so we can see if we like him. So there's your little feet super cute on. Then we're gonna merge these again, and, um, we're gonna use that smudge her again. Teoh make it so that her feet look a little bit more natural as the for kind of comes down and around, Um, her legs, I think even make sure. Yeah, I can clean this up a little bit too. off, lock off so that I could get in here and I can erase any Anything that's not looking right . Just clean it up a little bit. Okay, There we go. So now we have our bird. Now, the the one thing, um, the one thing that I noticed that I don't like is that, um her. I needs a little bit more white around it, and because we have already emerged those layers. Now, this is the problem with merging too early, right? Because we've already Marge those layers. Um, it's, uh, can't draw underneath that I anymore. So I'm gonna have to If I want to fix it and change it, I'm gonna have to just draw over. Um, and that's okay. We can be flexible. So I'm gonna go into thinking and bleed, and I'm gonna grab, um, kind of a just a more white color, white ish blue, And then I'm gonna just draw that right around right over the eye and a little bit further out where I want that to be, okay. And then I'll create a new layer on this can be an eye layer. And I'm gonna grab that black grab studio pen, and I'm gonna grab her. I'm gonna draw, And I within that circle, okay? Dropping color, clean this a job. And then we could grab that same color for the reflection here. Okay? Um, yeah, that looks a lot better. So now I've got that little ring around its eye, which I like a lot. Um, see, little mark is bugging me. Okay, so now I'm just gonna look at my my final bird and just decide, um, What I think if it needs any adjustments, I think what I'll do is turn awful. Lock on on this is well, and just maybe add a tiny bit of highlight. Uh, we can keep it on. It's just sketching and lower the opacity on the white and just add a little bit of highlight to the tops of her legs. Um, and then let's grab a darker color. Let's grab and let's make it a little darker on the bottom here, just for a little bit more. Um, depth in her feet. Okay. And I like how it turned out. And so I think this little Bluebird is although 5. Sketching the Gouldian Finch: Now that we have a cute little bluebird, we're going to go into our Goldie and Finch campus, and we're gonna look up and Google images golden Oh, Deon Finch. There, this, um, and what you'll notice about the golden finches that it's really, really, really colorful. Um, so we're gonna pick ourselves a good reference photo. You're super cool. Um, and the reason I picked the golden finches because it has so many colors. So how do we approach a bird that has 123456 maybe seven colors in it. Um and and we're gonna approach that in in this second. So it's always the first we're going to do is make a sketch layer and we'll make sure we have our 60 pencil and where on black. And we're just going to sketch out the Golden Finch. So once again, we're just looking for shapes here. It's little rounded head and and kind of a straight back. The feathers gonna come in, and the Tero tail feather comes out from there, Um, this round out all the way up to the front of its body here. And then I think I'm going to make his head just a little bit her, and then we can erase the lines we don't like. Okay? And then we can add in his be and then on, um, on this trying, I'm gonna, um, add in the color marks in my sketch, because there so many colors. We want to be a little bit more. Um, give ourselves a little bit more reference, Then we did on the last one. Soldiers kind of point out where all these colors lie. Make that a little longer. Okay, that's fine. Um, great. So and then we'll add some feet, too. - Okay . All right. There's a sketch. 6. Coloring and Texturing the Gouldian Finch: Okay, Now that I have my sketch, I'm ready to color. So the first thing I'm gonna dio is that a new layer on this is gonna be my color layer. Not gonna name it yet because we have a little bit of a process here. So I'm gonna approach this differently than the bluebird because we have so many more colors than we did with the Bluebird. So on my color layer, which I have selected, I'm gonna, uh, choose the color that I think is kind of beneath all the other colors. And I think that's yellow. So that's gonna be my base. And I'm gonna go in and grab my, um, Here we go. My inkley pen. Like a like I did before with the blue bird, and I'm gonna trace whips. I need yellow. Right. So, um, I'm gonna choose a yellow that I think fits in here, and I am going to outline my whole sketch. I think I'm gonna show that in. So that's my base color. Okay. And I'm going to see how many other layers I'm gonna potentially need now. I can do. Oops. I'm gonna do this Blue on the same layer as my yellow, so I'm not gonna worry about that one. But I'm gonna count all the other layers that I need. So I've got me yellow, and then I need 1234 more layers. So I'm gonna go in, and I'm gonna duplicate this layer four more times. Bear with me on this. So I'm gonna swipe. Duplicate, swipe, duplicate, swipe, duplicate, swipe, duplicate. Okay, so now I've got five, uh, layers of this yellow bird. So this 1st 1 I'm gonna leave alone because I know that it's where I want it to be. Now, the next layer, um I think is going to be, um we can start from the top, I think Here. No, we're gonna start from We'll start from the wing, and we'll just So let's their next layer is gonna be the screen wing. So I'm gonna grab I'm gonna turn this bottom layer off. I don't need it right now, and I'm gonna turn all these top players off. I'm just gonna be working with the layer that I'm going to make into a wing. I'm gonna turn my opacity down so that I can see my sketch underneath and I am going. Teoh, um, go back to me sketch. And I am going to grab just my wings. So I'm gonna go into my eraser. I'm gonna grab my in clean for my eraser, and I am gonna race everything that is not this wing. Okay? Now, on things that are gonna be over the top of it, colors that are gonna be over the top of it. I can, um, leave a little extra room here. You'll see what I mean as we go. So I'm gonna erase the rest of this. I can either erase it by hand here like this, or I can select it and erase it. If a selection tool and I select everything, draw a circle around everything that I want to race. And I swiped down with three fingers. I'm gonna say cut. It's gonna get rid of it. So now I have this wing, um, That is cut out for me. So I'm gonna grab I'm gonna turn this green. I wanna grab green that I think matches. I'm gonna go back to my wing layer. I can turn their capacity yet. Now, that's fine. And I'm gonna turn on al Flock. I'm gonna grab. I can really use any of these pens here, but I'm gonna grab, um, my grand brush under textures because it's just gonna fill this in really quickly for me. Make sure my capacities up, and I can make this a big brush, so I can just feel that and for me. So now I have a green wing. Okay, so if I turn my other layer on, I can now see how that showed up. Okay, um, now I'm gonna grab I'm gonna turn that, uh, I'm gonna grab, turn on my next layer, turn the opacity down and decide what's gonna be on top of that. And I think that's gonna be my purple air. So, um, I'm gonna turn off these next two lips, turn those off, charge my apple pencil in the process, okay? And I'm gonna work in this layer, and I'm gonna cut out the purple, so I'm gonna grab a purple color that I think works. Well, that's nice. And, um, I'm gonna grab my eraser. It's gonna be on in Quique, and I'm going to erase around the spot with the purple. He's my selection tool. Draw a circle around everything that I want to cut. Oops. That's why three fingers cut. Okay, now I'm going to turn the opacity Backup turn Alfa lock on and I grab my Grinch brush again . Everything's turned all the way up and I'm a turn it purple. Okay? Said it tested. I can turn on all the other layers and see how that purple spot has gone on top. Now, if there's anything that I need, Teoh clean up. I can go in and clean up a swell Macy's, um, spots here as well. We can do that at the end as well. Um Okay, so now my next one that's gonna be on top is my blue layer. So I'm gonna turn all these off again, Turn on the next layer that I'm gonna turn blue, turn the capacity down so I can see my sketch layer. I'm gonna grab really pretty bright. Well, uh, use my eraser to cut out this blue stripe. Okay? Use my selection tool to get rid of the rest of it. Swipe through fingers. Cut. Um, I'm gonna turn on Al flock. Use may cringe Brush to color that in blue. Okay. And now we can look at all of them ups, and the opacity needs to be all the way up. So if you see something weird happened like this, it's because your capacities down turn that. Okay. And now the last layer is going to be black so we can turn all these off. Turn our last layer on. Turn the opacity down Sweden's here. Sketch layer. He's already Racer and erase part of it. That's gonna be black. I'll select the rest. Okay, turn off. Lock on. Go down to black ish and color it in. Now. I can already tell my opacity is still down because of that black color turned my capacity backup. Now let's turn on. Um Now, let's turn on over on their layers and see how those cars turned up. Okay, Cool. So, um, now we have all of our, uh, color layers figured out. Now we could have done it the same way we did the bluebird right where we do. Okay. This sections yellow. I'm gonna call you that Yellow. This is green. I'm gonna color that green and do that on different layers as well. Um, but I find this to be an easier way to do it. It might seem a little confusing, but once you test it out, it it's just a little bit more accurate. Maybe. And, um, and can be easier. So whatever you prefer is fine. We could have done this method with the Bluebird as well. Um, so it's really up to you. Okay, so now that we've got all our colors, we can go in and add, um, add texture. So let's go in. We'll start with our base layer. Uh, let's turn off the lock on for that. Everything else has out flock. So we know that we had texture. We're only adding it to that layer. Um, and let's grab, uh, white God, why does shallow color actually a whitish blue color? Okay. And we're gonna use our grunge brush again, turn it down a little bit, and we're just gonna find our space where we want to turn this bird. Wait. Okay. And then maybe we want a little bit of black on the edge and some of this blue color not convinced on that blue, Um, I think I like that better or even. Okay, so we're just kind of laying color in right now. Okay, um, I'm gonna change this one to the blue color terrorist. Like it better. Okay, if you want to be more accurate, obviously, you can always take a screenshot. Bring it in color pick from the screenshot. Um, like we did in my illustrating butterflies class. Uh, but here we're just kind of eyeballing it, and, um and that's okay, too. So Okay, so now we want to add a little bit of texture to this layer. So, um, we'll make sure we're in our our base layer. Let's grab that that yellow color kind of for a base. And we're gonna use, um, all of our favorite text oring pencils. So I'm going to start with Hello. I'm gonna start with grand, actually. And I'm gonna add to make this a little bit more orange and a little bit darker, And I'm going to add a little bit of that orange texture in in places where it's a little darker. Okay. And the same thing. Let's go with blue. Black much Had that in? Yep. And that white can Adam at the top here and a little bit more yellow into our white tips. there we go. And well, and that's a nice first layer we can. Also, while we're here, add a little bit of shading will make this just a tiny bit darker with our charcoal, and we'll use our six p compressed. I like that for shading quite a bit. So we're just gonna on that end here slow pace, And next we'll go to the next layer, which is our, uh, wing, and we'll go back to that grunge brush. So textures grunge grab that green is a base color. Let's use something a little darker. And let's add texture in where we see a lot more, um, dark. And I'm gonna go even darker here with a, uh, 60 compressed charcoal and add that sheeting to the bottom of the wing. Okay, maybe a little bit to the top is Well, okay, maybe here. Okay. And now I see kind of this yellow green happening here. So let's grab a just a little bit more of a yellow color and we'll go back. Teoh textures cringe. And can I add that in to where we see it? Okay. And I'm gonna grab that charcoal again. And just a little bit of shading up there with that. Okay, uh, we'll go to our next layer, which is purple, and we'll grab, um, purple layer a little bit darker and use well, since we're on charcoal, we can do that. We'll just kind of, um, shade the bottom in the side here. And then we can go into, um, textures and a little bit of texture. You're too. And then grab original color and grab something lighter. And with charcoal, I think we will had a little bit of highlight. Maybe even a little protection. Just keep it interesting. Okay, Um, that looks nice. Now, let's go into our next one, which is our blue. I see a much lighter blue on the top is a highlight. So I think we'll use techs. Uhm, I'm sorry. Will use charcoal here. Teoh have that highlight in. No, let's go like almost wait here. And I see it here is well, and just add something a little darker on the bottom and think I'll do that with charcoal 100. And and then let's just hit it with a little bit of texture to Okay, um and then the black we can just add a little bit of we'll go to the black layer and we can add a little bit of just a little bit of blue to it with texture. Think I want more of Ah, deep blue and there a little bit more depth. Okay, um, and those air are layers for a bird. Now, if we feel good about that, then we can go ahead and merge all over them. Okay? And this has been totally bothering me. I'm gonna grab my eraser and my aunt bleed, and I'm just going to smooth this head out a little bit because it looks a little like, so funny to me. So now that it's all merged, I can do that all at once. Um, a little more around A little more flat, I guess. Okay. Yeah, like the better. Okay, cool. So here's my, um Here's my start of my my all right texture. Now, to me, this has a little bit less of the like stroke e feathers, and also these air a little bit smoother as faras um, when were the colors meat. So I don't really want to drag the colors in together the way that I did with the bluebird . They're just less of that feathering. And I think that the texture here does enough for me that I don't need that. So I'm not gonna add in those little strokes that I added in with the Bluebird. And I'm also not gonna, um, merge the colors as much you can if you want. And if you want to play with that, you totally can. Um, but you don't necessarily have to. Okay, so from here, um, I can add more texture, and I can also add, um, the details. So let's start with, um, adding just a little bit more texture here in there. So I'm going to start with this wing, and I'm gonna grab my artists cran and I'm gonna go for something maybe a little bit darker . And I'm just gonna kinda swipe that in and kind of blend these colors a little bit. Okay, Alfa locks on. I had to check that right. And I'm gonna make make it so that it's not perfectly Onley in the green that I'm mixing colors a little bit. And then the same thing. Um, with this yellow actually going to do something a little darker and create a little bit of Ah, um, a little bit of a shadow here under the wing in the yellow. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Cool. And let's see a little bit there and a little bit here. Bring the blue in a little bit to the other colors here. So artists Cran, let's go to Terkel's and virtually And I want just a little bit more like chunky texture in there. Um and I think maybe even a little bit more highlights in their Yeah, it's nice. Add a little bit moral quips. It's at a little bit more white throughout. Just a little more highlight. Just a little bit there. Okay. Pretty cool. Okay, so now we're texturizing, and we're gonna add some details. So on top, um, of this layer, we're gonna add the I and the beak, So I'm just gonna wing it on this one for the I. I'm going to grab my studio path and go with a black or near black, and, um, you know, I know I'm not going to do that. I'm gonna go with a near white, and I mean on in clean, and I'm gonna put in and I here and I'm gonna create a new layer, just in case I don't like that. And I would grab black, and I'm gonna grab my studio pen, and I'm gonna draw my eye on top of that. Here we go. Um, for that original color on and make that reflected keep down that, uh, make that reflective circle. There we go. Uh, and now I'm gonna make any layer for the beak here and this color eyes different than any of the other colors in here. So let's see, We're kind of a PCI. Um, that would be more a little bit orange and white ish. Let's see how that looks. Let's grab our studio pen again and make sure we're in our new layer lips. What did I draw? That's way up there. Okay. And now I'm gonna, um, lower the opacity here to see where my beak was originally. Okay? And I'm gonna change it anyway. Okay, so now I have a beak. Move it a little bit, okay? And I'm gonna turn on out flock here, and I'm gonna add details. So, um, let's grab that and let's grab. Um, it's good a sketching and grab a pencil and we're just gonna draw that line through the center of it. Speak. Let's grab our textures. Grunge brush. Let's That's too high. It's okay. Kinda like school. And then let's fill in where that color kind of meats here. Okay, um, I see a little bit darker on the bottom here, so that's grabs the dark. And let's go back to that sketching tour. You know, our pencil. It's Lenstra in the bottom here. Just a little more depth. Good. Let's grab this color and grab my pure white. Yeah, There we go. Eso if you double click in here, you get pure white, pure black. So that pure, white usar um, Grandjean brush again. And let's just add a little highlight there. You can barely see it because it speak is pretty light Months do that. Let's see. Um, okay, let's turn opacity back on here and let's see if we like that. Yeah, Cool. I'm gonna grab its beak. And just from the reference photo, it's a little higher on the bird. Okay. Okay. Cool. Um, so now I'm gonna move this down the beak down, and I'm gonna merge it with the bird so that I can add those further details. So, uh, let's grab our, um, its merger in our 60 pencil. And let's bring that black for it's not for black feathers into, um, the beak so that that meeting is just a little bit more organic. Okay, zoom out. See what we think? Yeah. Cool. Looks good. Okay, um, and then hiss claws gonna be about that color. Let's try that. And let's grab. Let's make any layer and let's use our sketching 60 pencil. Um, and let's draw those those feet. I want these just a little bit darker, so they show up a little bit more. It doesn't have to be perfectly accurate. Here, Do its best for are drying. Okay. And then once again, I'll go in and clean it up well, and just make, um, these claws a little bit more pronounced as claws. Talents? They're not claws or talons. Great. Okay, that's fine. And then let's do the same thing with this one. Clean it up. Okay. Then we can bring those down again too. Right over the bird. Um, well, up the capacity of the birds, we see what it looks like. Combine them and these are smarter tool. Mm. Do that. So it's not margin yet. Let me grab those. Actually, little would want it to go there instead. And then maybe. Yeah, well, just make this longer. So it's so nice to work in layers, because if if you do mess up, it's easy to That's easy to fix. Um, and then radio. I was definitely one of the beauties toe working digitally. Right. Okay, that's better. So now we can merge them. And now we can, um, have the for the feathers. Go over her leg, his leg, her leg. I can't decide whether the girls or boys Guess it doesn't matter. Okay, there we go, and we'll turn off our sketch layer. And there we have our golden finch. 7. Sketching the Northern Flicker: Now that we have our bluebird and our golden and finch, we're gonna move on to our northern flicker. So we're gonna open up our northern flicker canvas, and we are going Teoh search for Northern. Okay, so this is a northern flicker. And, uh, the reason I chose this particular bird is because she has a lot of detail, uh, in her feathers, all these markings and it poses a different challenge. And we'll have to approach it a little bit differently than we did with the other two birds that have a lot of colors. Now, there are a lot of colors in here that we can blend in, but what really stands out are these little markings. So the first thing we're going to do is sketch in our sketch layer. Well, okay. And we have black and we have our six p pencil, and we're going to sketch it just the way that we did the others. I like to start with the head and then moved down, and I'm looking for here is shapes. I'm just kind of making up this shape since I can't really see where it goes entirely, - okay ? And I'm going to refine those shapes and at the details. - Okay . And like we did before, we're also gonna draw in these little details. Um, that make the northern flicker unique. Like this little black spot on its chest, my cheek and this red you could barely see it red marking on the back of its head. It's got a lot of really neat markings. Okay? And then that wing doesn't necessarily come up that high with the black, so we'll just kind of keep it here. Cand as you can tell, I've made her like, a little bit more chunky. So maybe I'll cut her down like this a little bit more. Yeah, or I'll select use and move them can. Okay, that's our sketch for the Northern Flicker. 8. Coloring and Texturing the Northern Flicker: Now that we have our sketch, I'm gonna go ahead and add color. So the first thing I'm going to do is that a new layer, And that's gonna be our color layer. And I'm gonna grab, uh, what I think to be the base color. So I think she's got this pink issue, and, um, kind of that white color, so we'll go kind of took pinkish. Um, it's a little bit Mahdi. It's in it. Okay, let's try that. So we're gonna go ahead and grab in, inking are in plead pencil or pen again, and we're just gonna outline our sketch. So there's our base layer far northern flicker. And then I'm gonna just add in, um, these other colors with my grand brush. So I'm gonna turn on Al Flock on my color layer, and I'm gonna grab textures, grunge, and I'm gonna grab a brownish color, see if we can find something that's similar. Yeah, Okay. And I'm gonna color that in where the wing is. I'm gonna turn my capacity down just so I can see where that we in kind of ends here and clear that in. Okay, I see it a little bit in her tail as well, so we can just kind of dropped that in. Um, we'll add that in with texture into her chest, and she's got a little bit of more of a pink face. Turn that capacity back up and look, we'll just see. Yeah, there we go. We're gonna color her face, and it's really pretty pink, pinkish, modish color, And then we'll grab a gray for her head. So once again, when we're laying in this color, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just giving us a general idea, uh, where we want things to be now, I also I wanna lay in these details rate. So she's got this red detail in these black details. Um, and I'm gonna eat, um, no, Grab it like an almost black. We don't want it to be perfectly black, but in almost black. And I'm gonna add another layer on and put in those details. So I'm gonna grab my complete brush in the Indian category, and I'm gonna turn the capacity of my layer down so I can see where I where I put that in. You can also guess it just depends on your comfort. level with just kind of laying things in color that in and then we'll grab a red. Okay, Thank you. Just edit that a little bit, okay? And those are the details. So now we can turn our rapacity backup and kind of see what we're working with here. Um, what I notice is well, about this is that the sheep is a little bit off with what I did. So see if I can edit that a little bit. Okay. Great. So, um, now we can go ahead and start and start at in texture. Okay? So to start with, let's grab this brown color, and I'm gonna add it into her chest a little bit with my grand brush. So I'm gonna go ahead and just start laying in, um, texture with my grand fresh, um, everywhere that I see that I wanted to be the lighter attached. The less it shows up, the harder it touch. The heart of that grunge is gonna show up. Um, okay. Time here. A little bit. I think I want a little bit of black in here as well. Some grunge, even darker on the tips here. Um, maybe a little bit throughout right here. You can make that smaller too. Um, maybe a little bit of gray in her pink in your chest. Okay. This, uh, white ish color, I wanna lay in her wings a little bit. I definitely see that showing up in there and her face. Okay, down here comes. Okay, so now I've got, um that grunge late in now I want to use, um my artists cramp and sketching and just kind of, um, ad just a little bit more of a chalky texture in here as well. Okay, even gonna go into my chuckles. And I'm gonna grab my six be compressed, Alec, to use this for a little bit more of like the highlights in the shadows. Um, so I'm gonna put a little bit of a highlight on top of her head and maybe something a little darker on her body here at the bottom. A shadow on her neck. Um, it's still highlight on her wing here. Um, hand it's a little darker under her wing here. Oops. Okay. And I think I'm gonna grab birch tree and add just a little bit more of that. Really nice brown, like in her chest where you see it? Right here. So anywhere you see, you just need a little bit more of, ah, mixture of colors or a little more texture than then go ahead and just add that in with either burn. True, your artists, Cran. It's a nice little kind of speckled. Um, I'm sure that you can, Adam. Okay, so now I'm gonna go on top of all of this. Actually, I can in the same layer that I have my details. I'm gonna grab my, um this is a new brush. We haven't used it yet. Uh, I'm gonna go into organic, and I'm gonna grab my read brush, and I'm gonna grab almost white from a kind of pink area and see very cool. Um, we're not gonna go at full size, but we're gonna go and see. What is that at, like, around 50%? Um, and we're just gonna add in these white little spots here. You know, I think I'm actually gonna put these on the actual bird. See how that goes so that when I paint, I can paint the bottom, um side because Alfa locks on. It is a nice option to have. So I don't need to have many spots. I think, um, were just kind of, um, signifying that these fathers exist. Okay. So, anywhere their spots, we're just gonna kind of add those in, and then we'll grab a almost black, and we'll put spots right on top of this, and we're still using our read brush here. Have you really zoom in here? You can see that below those black spots are just this white outline. So that's what we're kind of mimicking here with the white underneath in the black, on top with the spots. Okay. And there's white there, too. So that's nice. So let's grab. Let's grab our charcoal 60 compressed. Let's put that groups, What is grab that white color whitish color and on our bird layer, let's put that underneath hiss, um, more black chest here. Just a little outline here. Yeah, when you can see it right here. Okay. And maybe a tiny, teeny, tiny bit coming out from him. See if the red has anything. Not really hot. Well, let's just Okay, cool. Um, let's go back to our organic read and for his wings. I'm just gonna signify that That those markings are there. And so I'm just gonna kind of, uh, add in these squiggles as a marker of these little markings in its wing so that we don't get too preoccupied with just every little detail. Sometimes it's nice to just go. Okay, this is gonna mimic that. So from afar, when I look at this, it looks like that, right? So how can we simplify something so that we're not doing Agillion little dots of Jillian's ? Maybe too much, but a lot of dots when we could just simplify it. Okay. And then let's Merrick that as well. Okay. And some depth here as well. And we see a little bit of almost a yellow gold color. It's going here. Let's find that. And let's swiped that in kind of where we see it. And it doesn't have to be perfect. It can just be a representation. Right. Okay. Um, so I just noticed that we missed this whole wing here. Whoops. So let's add that in. Um, that's gonna be this black color. Let's use, uh, think lead again. So let's go. Teoh are thinking and I'm in a layer below my bird layer because that um, that wings below. And I just missed that altogether in my sketch. And so that's okay. I can added in right now, and that looks great. So I'm gonna click on my color to get back to that original color, and I'm gonna go back to read, um, which is an organic, and I'm just gonna swipe Hello. Um, that color's whoa. That sorry struggling here, uh, that color three where I want it. Okay, um, just make sure it's where I wanted Teoh. So there we go. Now, if I think that that's, um this is maybe a little too strong. For what? How it looks, um, in here. So I can, um, kind of adds, um, some color and some texture onto that. So maybe let's go to, um you know, before we do that, let's go back to that black color and let's just add a couple. Um, we can combine these. That's fun. Um, now we can add a couple squiggles here as well to match the Wayne. Okay. Okay. Cool. Now let's go back to textures and grunge and let's make sure that we're an awful lock groups, and let's just kind of cover that a little teeny, tiny bit would be too much sure that again slow the capacity once again. It's not what it is, Brit. A zit. Waas, huh? I think that big swipe is bugging me. So let's go back to read. Yeah, so you can always just suggest rate and play with it and work with it and see what works. Okay, Um great. So now let's we can combine these two. That's fine. And now we can add the details because she's starting to look pretty good. So do we have a little white around our I hear kind of or just a little bit lighter. Maybe we can even go with gray on that. And now I'm seeing some warn cheer. Even so, let's grab um, it's crap. A little bit of like a deep orange. Yeah, and a little bit of it's good with the charcoal and six p compressed. And let's just see if we can on a smudge that in that school Okay. May um OK, now let's create a new layer. Uh, let's grab can oranges, oranges, orangish white ish, and go back. Teoh in, please. Uh, I, like complete is the underneath circle for the I. It's grab another layer and let's grab Describe the black color that nearly have and put studio Pan Monster are on top of it. Now, what I noticed is that this, um, bird has more of an oval I And so we'll try to stay true to that and see what we think if we like it. Okay, now that reflective. Right. Okay, here we go. Okay. Go. Think I want this to be just a tiny bit bigger. Mm. There we go. Okay. Great. Uh, now we have this grayish color for the beak. We can start with deep black. Um, let's add another layer for the beak. We've got studio pen and let's draw the speak filler in, and we can move it. However we want it, it's well, higher is cool. Let's put on off. Look and let's get some great texture in there and some lighter texture in there to get some highlight, even whiter. Oops. Okay. And there's our beak. So now let's bring that beat down merger with the bird and the same thing we did before resource merger with a six b pencil and combined those feathers right over top of the edge of the beak, so it just looks like it. It's coming out of its feathers, Okay? And then the last thing that we want to dio it's crab. Those colors from the beak and make a feat make its feet. So it's out of me layer for the feet. Let's make sure we're on 60 punts, soul and way well, make the feet ongoing with an eraser and clean it up a little bit cheap from a little bit like we did before. Okay, And then let's turn off the sketch and let's see what we think if we like it, and that helps us be ableto clean it up just a little bit more. Didn't she longer should me? Okay, um, and then once we like that, let's combine it with our bird. And let's smudge that for right over and now we have, ah, Northern Flicker